Philippine Media Turn To Stale News

MANILA, Philippines (The Adobo Chronicles, Manila Bureau) – On June 11, 2016, two of the country’s leading newspapers published misleading news.

The Inquirer and Philippine Star both reported that Philippine President-elect Rod Duterte had a 26% trust rating compared to Vice President-elect Leni Robredo’s 45%, making it appear to the reading public that Duterte, who garnered 16 Million votes during last month’s elections was much less popular than Robredo who got 14 Million votes.

It took some critical reading to realize that the survey, conducted by Social Weather Stations (SWS), was conducted from May 1 to 3, just before the May 5 elections.

Other media outlets, including ABS-CBN also posted follow-up stories on the stale survey.

When asked by The Adobo Chronicles why they chose to make headlines out of a stale news, spokespersons for the media outlets said that they had no choice since Duterte had stopped conducting media briefings. “It’s been a slow news day every day since our reporters have had little to no access to the president-elect. We have to come up with news for our headlines, otherwise, we will be forced to bow out of business.”